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GREENBURGH, N.Y.  When Waldo "Waldizi" Luctamar was young, he used to duke it out with his cousin, engaging in rap battles to see who the better rapper was. They spat lyrics back and forth, trying to outdo each other's best rhymes.

"That's where it really started," said Luctamar, 19. "We used to play around with it and not take it seriously."

Two years ago, in the basement of his brother's barber shop where his cousin built a recording studio, Luctamar tested out the equipment in a more professional setting. While Luctamar, once a Woodlands High School student, had always enjoyed piecing lyrics together, he then started thinking about singing and rapping as a career.

"Once I went to the studio and really tried it out, they were saying I was good," he said. "So then I really took it seriously."

Luctamar is currently taking a semester off from studying dentistry at Westchester Community College. He works at Greenburgh's Joyce Leslie store on Tarrytown Road. Currently living on the border of White Plains and Greenburgh, Luctamar lived in Hartsdale for several years.

"He's a really nice guy, with some decent rapping skills, which is great considering I usually don't care for rap," said Jasmine Johnson, a co-worker at Joyce Leslie.

With nearly 10,000 "likes" on
Facebook
and another near-800 on
Twitter
, Luctamar wants to fast-track his career. In three years, he said that he hopes to be solely concentrating on his music  performing, selling CDs, appearing on TV and getting a record deal.

"It takes a long time to get a degree in dentistry," Luctamar said. "I think I'll be better off doing music. I don't want to work. I just want to base my life on music."